Slaves of the Mind

As I look around at my people, I am appalled by all that I see. We envy each other, sabotage each other, steal from each other, lie to each other, and sadly we kill each other. The worst part of it by far is how the chocolate skinned ones are envious of the fair complected ones. So much so that it seems ‘light-skinned’ is no longer considered to be black. Now my companion is black, my child is black, but they are both fair complected. Whenever I take her to the store or I’m on the bus everyone asks the inevitable “is she mixed?’ Or ‘is she white?’ And I’m just left to wonder why is it that my child has to be mixed to be of a lighter skin tone? While it is true that the lighter skinned people are descendants of the slave children who were fathered by the masters or overseers, the old adage does go ‘if there’s one drop of black blood in you, you’re black.’ I grow weary of listening to us refer to each other as ‘niggas’ or terms of the like. We were once a proud people and it seems as if that we have allowed ourselves to fall by the wayside in terms of self-respect and self love. I just wish that this will pass and we will reclaim our proud heritage as the Nubian kings and queens that we are.